Triangle Mama Bloggers

Local Music

September 29, 2010

The New Playground in Town: Bad Name, Great Park

by Melissa

When I first moved to Raleigh a couple years ago, I learned pretty quickly how many great city parks there were in town.

That’s why when a new park opened near my house this summer, I had to check it out. It’s quickly become our go-to park. It has a GREAT playground, some actual shade structures and some nice walking and biking trails.

The only problem? The name...

Landfill District Park

Ok, I’ve been in marketing for over 10 years. I’ve named golf clubs, checking accounts and smaller things like newsletters. So I’m having a hard time figuring out why on Earth the park namers (marketers or not) decided that using the word “landfill” in the name of a park where kids play was smart. I mean, it’s LITERAL I guess but marketing isn’t about being literal.

Truthfully the name isn’t the only thing that might scare people away. When you drive in, you’re greeted with a chain link fence and these...

Yes, tires. Then you actually drive AROUND THE LANDFILL. Maybe it should be obvious from the name that there was a landfill at the park. But I naively thought that maybe it USED to be a landfill or something. I didn’t expect to drive around a huge mound covered in grass to get to the park.

Before you click away from this page and say “Gee, Mel, way to sell me on this new park!”... let me show you these:

A new modern (and CLEAN) bathroom, complete with shade structure and benches.

A “little kid” play structure and a couple of baby swings.

And a cool rock climbing thing, a rope tower and a play structure for the bigger kids.

Now, isn’t that better? There’s also a few walking and biking trails.

The kids don't seem to mind the name. Big Roo would have only flinched if the name had Doody or Toot in it (ah, boys).

If you can get past the name (and the fact that it’s behind the landfill), then this is your park. In fact, the dreaded name must not be scaring away all that many people. It seems to be relatively busy anytime I’ve been there.

I’ll go there. A lot, in fact. Just if someone ever asks me what park I like to take my kids to, I’ll have to always follow the name Landfill District Park with a rambling explanation of how, no really, it’s a great park!

It is a really nice park, overall. The trail that runs between the park and Falls River is very nice, and perfect for my girls to ride bikes/scooters. And there is actually a lot of neat things for folks into mountain bikes- they even have what looks like a training area or something off one of the trails.